Tomorrow, I'm heading to Washington, D.C. to attend a meeting of the Society for Marketing Professional Services DC Chapter, meeting fellow SMPS bloggers and rainmaking/marketing gurus Ford Harding and Tim Klabunde. Hopefully, as well, by the end of the day in Washington (I catch a 10 pm flight to Toronto), I'll be ready to engage the final selection for our new Washington Construction News publisher.
Here is the paradox. If you ask people like Tim or Ford, "What is the best way to recruit Rainmakers", they may say: "Why don't you become a rainmaker yourself -- especially if you are an owner or partner in the business/practice?" Essentially, as Ford Harding points out in his most recent blog entry, if you own or are a partner in the business, you can't simply dump this responsibility on someone else. Hired sales people (or "business developers" if you want to avoid the word "sales") simply cannot do the job as well and with as much passion and client relevance as a real partner/owner -- and if you have been around for a while, your network of existing relationships will far exceed any contacts your new hire can bring to the picture.
But here is the interesting thing -- you don't need to sell your soul or twist yourself into contortions to be an effective rainmaker; you simply need to change your attitudes to your business development responsibilities. If you are true to yourself, if you are authentic, and your relate your own interests and passions to your business development model, you can succeed.
Still, there are times when you will have to go outside your organization to hire talent. This ideally happens when you are growing, to new markets and opportunities. This is where an effective and relationship-oriented business development and hiring system really works well.'
More soon . . .
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